Monday marks the beginning of the season for Alabama women’s basketball, with the team taking on the Stetson Hatters at home.
It’s a season full of unknown for the Crimson Tide, which lost the three players who led the team in scoring and shooting.
“We lost 67% of our scoring, 41% of our rebounding and 61% of our assists on a Top 25 offense and defense a year ago,” head coach Kristy Curry said at SEC Tipoff 2026.
Even with a top-12 recruiting class in the country and several returning veterans from last year’s squad that was an overtime loss away from the Sweet 16, Alabama did not receive a single vote for the preseason AP Top 25 poll and was picked by media members to finish ninth in the SEC.
To remedy the losses of guards Sarah Ashlee Barker, Aaliyah Nye and Zaay Green, Curry brought in a healthy balance of proven transfers and highly ranked recruits. Most important to the rotation is senior guard Ta’Mia Scott, who came from Middle Tennessee having just earned an All-Conference USA first team nod and a spot in the school’s 1,000-point club.
Aside from Scott are Alancia Ramsey, an All-Sun Belt third-team forward coming from Coastal Carolina, and Waiata Jennings, a senior guard who shot 34% from 3 at Baylor and was a previous conference player of the year at Collin College.
On the freshmen front, the class is headlined by guard Ace Austin, who won two straight 1A state titles with Spring Garden High School and was the No. 1 player in Alabama and 39th nationally. Also interesting are bigs Lourdes Da Silva Costa and Joy Egbuna, both of whom are 6 feet, 3 inches tall and demonstrated ability in the preseason to assert their dominance on the interior. Lastly is Tianna Chambers, a 4-star recruit who was No. 94 in the ESPNW rankings.
The low-finish prediction might have more to do with the superiority of the teams above than the inferiority of this year’s Crimson Tide squad.
The 2025 championship runner-up, preseason AP No. 2 South Carolina, stands atop the conference forecast. After that, the teams higher than Alabama include No. 4 Texas, No. 5 LSU, No. 6 Oklahoma, No. 8 Tennessee, No. 12 Ole Miss, No. 19 Vanderbilt and No. 24 Kentucky. With such dense residence in the Top 25, the SEC shows that even teams that finish lower in conference standings could still be among the best in the country.
Given the high rankings of SEC teams, Alabama will inevitably face high-stakes matchups this season. The Crimson Tide plays every other in-conference opponent from January to March, and thus high-stakes matchups are inevitable.
The one team Alabama plays twice in the SEC is South Carolina, which plays host to the Crimson Tide on New Year’s Day in its SEC opener and then travels to Tuscaloosa on Feb. 19. Texas then comes to town on March 1 in the regular season finale, LSU hosts on the road Feb. 1, Oklahoma is the visitor on Feb. 15 and Tennessee travels to Coleman Jan. 18.
Turning the page on the most successful campaign in Curry’s tenure, the Crimson Tide will look to forge its way to a favorable conference finish and ultimately another placement on a high seed line when it comes to March.
About the new leadership expectations on Karly Weathers, Essence Cody and Timmons — whom Curry took to the SEC Tipoff — she said, “I think all three, in their own way, just continue the tradition of great leaders and great people and great work and great energy that’s come before them.”
After her detailing of the statistical losses, Curry added, “I’m so excited about what this team can become.”
